Makai Wars English Guide, Character Info, & Translations

Makai Wars (魔界ウォーズ ) released on Android and iOS (in Japan only) in February! As a huge fan of Disgaea I started a guide to both get you started quickly and also detail the more intricate details, all without knowing Japanese. The guide will be expanded over time as new info comes in. As always, you can donate to my Patreon to support my guides!

Makai Wars is a simplified Strategy Roleplaying Game much like Disgaea (and half of NIS’ other games), and it’s Asagi’s very own game! For real this time! No really, stop laughing!

4* Metallia
Wood/Sword/Female/Flying
S2: CT4~2, AOE Big Damage Damage 15% chance of dealing all kinds of ailments to enemies for 2 Turns.
S3: CT6~4, AOE Super Big Damage, 20% chance of dealing all kinds of ailments to enemies for 2 Turns.
P1: At the beginning of the wave, Poison all Walking enemies for 2 Turns. All Walking Enemies have SPD-10~30%.
P2: Damage received from enemies with ailments reduced by 11~33%. Damage dealt to enemies with ailments increased by 44~66%.
P3: When defeated, revive one time at 60~80% HP and reduce Wait by 20~50.

3* Trenia
Light/Book/Female/Walking
S2: CT4~2, AOE Big Damage + 35~80% chance of 2-Turn Burn.
S3: CT6~4, AOE Super Big Damage + 30~45% 2-Turn Confuse.
P1: All Allies within 2 Tiles of her have DEF+15~25% and SPD+1~10%.
P2: At the end of her turn, generate a shield equal to 20% of her max HP. Also, at the beginning of her turn, if she has a shield, Recover 25% of her HP.

2019-01-24: New 15 day pass IAP, gives the same as the normal but also 10% more success rate for enhancing (10% of the current rate, not 10 percentage points), 500 rubies on last day, 1 dark ticket (single time).

2018-12-21: Buffs for some characters, Thanks to Yilx for the translations! Also noted in Stats that melee units (range 1) deal extra damage with normal attacks. Finally, note that Holiday Laharl and Holiday Etna are two of the best units in the game!

2018-12-14: Happy Holidays! Holiday event with Laharl, Etna, and Asagi as limited units. Asagi is free as usual: Holiday Asagi stones are a rare drop from the final stage! It’s a grind event so repeat the final stage a lot. If Asagi is the boss, she drops stones. Thief drops other rewards.

Special $100 IAP pack with a ticket that can redeem any single non-limited/collaboration character instantly (you can see the choices in the shop menu). Since it’s just one, I’d say it’s not that worth it. There is a much cheaper “Rank Bonus” IAP that’s more worth tho.

2018-11-12: Item World is out (APK update). You don’t have to spend rubies! That’s just to speed up the timer. Details from Sad Yilx:

-you dont actually play item world, you send a party of any number into the IW to get innocents, level a bit and get some goodies
-you can still use the units you sent into item world
-they will return once every 3 hours with random coloured innocents of a random number, every 10th floor you get goodies as per the normal game
-red innocents can power up attack enchants on items, green can power up def, etc
-special purple ones can remove enchants from items
-you can speed up 1 floor, 10 or 20 floors at a time with rubies

2018-11-09: Game update! Halloween event part 2: ranking event for Asagi Stones. 3 rounds of 1 week long rankings with rewards in each. In addition there’s point rewards; 6k points is enough to summon Halloween Asagi, as long as you get the 10 stones from the earlier event mission, even if you don’t rank. You can also +1 Halloween Asagi with two 1k+ rankings or two 3k and one 1k ranking.
1-100: 100 stones
501-1000:50
1001-3000: 30
3001-5000: 10

-New Story
-New Characters (Athena and Mr Champloo)
-Guaranteed 1 3* pull is back (Diamonds only, 10 times per person)
– Orb Dungeons Up
– Arena Up
– Voices for Athena
– Items for Desco distributed, 1 Desco concerted to 10 Mana
– DEF Rebalancing Notice on the 31st
*When an attacking character is higher than a defending character’s defense, the difference will be reduced (?)
*No changes for when DEF is higher than attack

2018-09-16: Game update: Desco XX event! See Events below. Void Dark and a Ragnaquest girl added to Gacha, and a rate up (the rate up is the banner with the countdown, the other is unboosted). Also, it seems various things in the game have been made more forgiving over the last several updates:
Weekly Quests (extra hell/evo/xp/etc) seem more common with multiple per day now, and they cost less AP
7* item drop rate seems higher from SP10 quests
Failing equipment enhancement raises the chance for success every failure now
New achievements
Gaps between Arena seasons seem shorter

2018-08-20: The latest update updated the Tutorial rerollable gacha to give 10 characters including 1 guaranteed 3*s (it can have up to at least 3-5 it seems). Tap the red button to reroll until you get what you like. Appears to be the full pool less the Dark Ticket/Event characters naturally. See below. Also, new Arena matches added.

2018-06-29: Content update:
More Voices added (most ragnaquest characters are voiced now)
New story chapter with associated rubies/goodies
New Vote SP Quest event (first option is Blue Orb, section is Red Orb, you can only vote for one)
New Female Laharl/Rota event (unsure of final reward at time of writing)
New Female Laharl/Archer event (unlocks after beating Rota event)
Gachapon for the Female Laharl OCs and Buff Anubis (they really, REALLY like girlharl huh)
Extra diamonds/rubies when buying diamonds (roughly 20% more, not really worth buying if you weren’t already planning to buy)

2018-06-27: App update, 1.5.1. Thanks to Sad Yilx in the discord for translating:
Fixed Valvatorez/Majorita freezing bug
Fixed the present icon vibrating bug
Fixed a bug when refilling AP with diamond/rupees
Fixed a bug that gacha girl (marie-san) stops moving if you tap her while gacha
At some point, Zombies’ blind effect was nerfed and no longer stacks

2018-05-01: Beryl event! My phone won’t load Makai Wars ATM so I don’t have many details. She was added to the gacha pool too.

2018-04-23: Flonne and Odin episodes added

2018-04-20: Lots of updates to the character spreadsheet. Added Achievements section to the guide.

2018-04-14: Pram, Petta, and Zetta from Makai Kingdom (Phantom Kingdom in Japan) are coming to Makai Wars with an event/gacha on the 16th.

2018-04-10: Completed the skeleton of the Character Spreadsheet, with names and icons for all characters. The document is open so anyone can add skill translations and strategy notes! Started translating the in app purchase packs for Makai Wars. Found a better japanese wiki that’s more up to date than Gamy.

2018-04-09: Bit of important info I haven’t found a place to work into the guide yet: At Defense >1600 it seems one can start grinding for 6 star gear in SP9-1 quests.

2018-04-02: April fool’s was a success, rewards will be sent on the 6th. Expanded Equipment section, turns out Boots can have +Mov as an Enhancement!

2018-03-31: April Fool’s Day event! Just lasts 24 hours so be sure to play the levels. They’re very easy and all players are rewarded based on total points. Looks like we’ll easily hit the last milestone. Here’s the song.

2018-03-30: New event, see the section below for details! Gives one-time premium items. Also started a spreadsheet for character/etc translation since it’s a bit too much data entry for me to do all by myself. Feel free to add the passives/etc for characters you have to the sheet and I’ll work them into the guide soon!

2018-03-26: Made a Makai Wars channel in my discord server specifically for Makai Wars chatter. Ask for tips or just talk about the game with other players!

2018-03-23: Etna and Freya SP Quest Episodes were added to Makai Wars! More info on Episode Quests added to the SP Quest section.

2018-03-22: Added more clarity on what SP quests can give (they’re the only way to get six star/seven star equipment). Added info on resetting the CloverlabID cloud save’s password.

2018-03-20: Added General Strategy section to Gameplay

2018-03-19: New Prinny event and weekly XP vial SP quests were added to make leveling new characters a bit easier. Updated the Current Timed Events and Characters headings.

2018-03-16: Makai Wars updated and won’t run without the latest Makai Wars APK. The good news is it brings Valvatorez to the normal gachapon and comes with a new story chapter!

2018-03-08: Added more info on upgrading Formations, and a Game Updates section just below this one.

2018-03-07: Added Current Events section.

2018-03-06: Version 01.03.01: Fixes Timezone issue (players of any timezone will regain AP over time as usual, goodbye Japan time!). Added main screen icons for tutorial (bulletin board) and Items. Added “repeat” option along side the Auto Battle and 2x speed options, allowing players to repeat SP quests quickly for farming.

2018-03-06: Geo Symbol info added, and some misc fixes from the last couple days I forgot to mention.

2018-03-02: Restructuring, more Gameplay and Grinding info added. Added info about Gem set bonuses to new Equipment section

2018-03-01: Team Attack info added.

2018-02-28: Added links to new translations of the 4koma comics to the translations section. Game update: Usalia and Surt added to the Gachapon, and an Usalia SP quest was added.

2018-02-26: New Gameplay and Gachapon info added.

2018-02-23: The new update requires your device to be on JST to earn AP/use the gachapon. More info in the FAQ. Makai Wars updated with the episode quests for Laharl and Valkyrie, which will allow players to get Awakening Stones for those two characters. Added info on the different types of missions/SP Quests. Added link to a github project for fan translations.

2018-02-21: Method added for re-rolling the 2 post-tutorial gachapons for the obsessive types.

2018-02-20: Made a First Impressions Video of Makai Wars on Youtube. Added some major differences from Disgaea gameplay-wise. Translated Daily Quests. Character list (3 star only) and some more menu translations.

What The Heck Is Makai Wars?

Makai Wars (魔界ウォーズ) is a long-running gag in the Disgaea/NIS community. Originally it was announced as a PSP game for E3 2004 and Asagi was to be the protagonist. It was a no-show. It was later re-announced as a PS3 game, which also never materialized.

Since then Asagi has shown up in a majority of NIS tactical games making cameo appearances, usually searching for her game, Makai Wars. She even got a full “Asagi Mode” side story in Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood (yes that’s a real title).

Finally, in the fateful year of our Overlord 2018, Makai Wars is a real thing and Asagi didn’t lie about it being her game; though it’s basically a Disgaea spinoff title featuring her. It’s a mini-SRPG playing like a simplified version of many of NIS’s other titles, specifically Disgaea.

Makai Wars Quickstart Guide

Big word of warning here; this is not a text-light game. With the use of Google Translate’s image translate feature (Android Version, iOS version), experience with past NIS titles, and a healthy dose of highly scientific trial-and-error, you’ll probably be able to play this game.

It will not be easy at first, but it’s fully playable as long as you’re willing to forgo the story. Even with Google Translate you’re unlikely to be able to enjoy the story without quite a bit of extra effort. If you’re searching for other, native language resources for the game, note the title is “魔界ウォーズ” in native japanese.

Heads up – Yes, this is a free to play mobile game and yes, there is a gachapon. If that’s a problem for you I strongly recommend not bothering especially if you cannot read Japanese. But if you just want to take a quick peek, you can try out Makai Wars for free of course

But for those who want to dive in headfirst like me, here’s how to get started. First you’ll be greeted by some Japanese menus, the intro isn’t too hard to work your way through but here’s an English translation of the first menus just in case:

Once you’ve downloaded and installed Makai Wars it will ask you to agree to the Terms of Service (check the box). Generally, pressing the Red button is Back/Cancel and the Blue button is Accept/Continue. Keep Accepting from the start and name your account (8 characters only).

Eventually you’ll have to download about 40MB of extra data to start the tutorial. Be warned that later you’ll have to download another 400MB of data after the tutorial to actually start playing. I recommend starting Makai Wars on WiFi for that reason.

Tutorial

You’ll get a little story sequence (which you can skip if you don’t know Japanese) and the intro will play. Turn your device on it’s side to see the intro in full 16:9 and turn your volume on if you can/like.

Before we start playing Makai Wars will give you a free Gachapon roll of 4 characters; three 2★ rarity characters and a special 3★. To use Disgaea terms, 2★ characters are “Generics” like Female Warrior and Prinnies, while 3★s are Story Characters like Laharl and Flonne.

The 3★ characters you can get in the tutorial gachapon are listed below. A few characters can only be earned in regular gachapon pulls, not this free one.

Tutorial Gachapon possibilities

You can see a current list of characters here (in japanese). Anyone in that list in Red cannot be gotten in the tutorial gachapon. Additionally Etna is a 20 day login bonus, Asagi is given for free, and Freya is given as a preregistration bonus (to all players); none of those three characters will be in the first Gachapon pull, but you’ll get them all free (eventually, in Etna’s case).

Famous characters that are in the gachapon:

Laharl

Seraphina

Almaz

Rosalina

Killia

Artina

You can reroll the tutorial gachapon as many times as you like by pressing the red button on the left after the draw. Shoot for a 3★ character you like, but remember no amount of spins will get you more than one 3★, and there will be plenty of draws for generic 2★s later.

After you get your starter characters a battle starts. The tutorial is basic SRPG stuff that any Disgaea fan should be most familiar with. Don’t worry about your actions in the battle, it’s very easy, just move forward aggressively and you’ll finish it in a few minutes tops.

After the tutorial you’ll get your first login bonuses; a total of 600 Gems, enough for two extra character Gachapon pulls to start filling out your ranks. From here you’re on your own (for now), just try to experiment and have fun! Some basic menu translations have been posted here to get you started.

Reroll First Gachapons

If you hate yourself enjoy min-maxing Gachapon rolls, a method was discovered to re-roll the first two gachapon rolls with the extra 600 gems you get early in the game without re-downloading the main game.

If you enjoy Shiny Hunting in Pokemon give it a shot for the 3★s of your dreams, personally I wouldn’t bother.

Cloud Save

There’s a cloud save option in the Settings menu you should set up as soon as possible (the two phones and the arrow). Tap the top button to make a new CloverLab account or make one here, then log into it in the game to start using cloud saves. All that’s required is an email and a password no other info.

This will protect your data if your phone is stolen by a Prinny or mistaken for a Sardine by an overlord. If you forgot your CloverLab password (hint; save it in your browser’s password manager!), you can reset your cloverlab ID here.

Acts as all elements; all damage taken is not effective, all damage dealt is super effective

30% (max 50%) increased damage against enemies with a status

Shards Obtained in Asagi Episodes in SP Quests

Characters Outside Typical Gachapon

Certain “boss” characters and other characters are not included in the “main” gachapon. They include:

Dragon

Requires Dragon Ticket

250 Tokens in the Token store

Kitsune

Requires Kitsune Ticket

250 Tokens in the Token store

Dark Type generics

Requires Dark Tickets

Only one is in the main game, in Chapter 4.

Two more can be bought as part of the Dark Package the game currently sells.

This means it’s nearly impossible to get dark units.

Gameplay

Before you do anything in the game, set up your cloud save as per above! Alright? Good.

General Strategy

AI Manipulation

The AI works in certain generally predictable ways.

Weakest Target Priority

If all else fails, you can physically block a unit from pathing to your weakest character; units can’t walk through tiles where an enemy is, so you can form a wall preventing the quickest (or only) path from your enemy to the unit they want to target and they’ll instead focus on who’s in range.

Team Attacks

Much like Disgaea, Makai Wars has Team Attacks. Team Attacks are indicated by red exclaimation icons, and if your formation is right and the red mark is seen, a team attack will always execute.

Team attacks add ~10% of the damage from each additional party member. Elemental weakness/resistance is accounted for separately for each team mate. Amusingly, allies affected by Sleep will still join in Team Attacks.

Melee Team Attacks

Ranged units will join in Melee team attacks. Ranged units at melee range will not use this formation. Oddly, while Sword and Spear units both use the Melee team attack formation, Sword units will not join a Spear team attack and vice versa, but ranged units will join both.

A unit on the single tile on the opposite side of the enemy from the team attack initiator will join in to (so in this case, on top of the imp).

Ranged Team Attacks

Non-ranged units will not join in on Ranged team attacks.

Back Attacks

Hitting an enemy from behind will do 50% extra damage. Both regular attacks and skills can be boosted by this, unlike Team Attacks which are regular attacks only. Back Attacks are always preferable to Team Attacks if a choice must be made.

Back Attacks with ranged weapons can hit from any tile behind the sprite, even if it’s diagonal. Since characters can only face right or left, it’s easier than you might think to pin a character in a state where you can move behind them and get a back attack.

A melee unit directly above/below a unit has a pretty good change of getting a back attack next turn unless the unit moves two tiles away; the AI usually doesn’t bother to do this.

Stats

HP: Obviously, HP is how much damage you can take before a KO.

Attack: Damage dealt is determined by Attack only in Makai Wars, rather than different weapons using different stats in Disgaea.

Defense: Reduces damage you take. Each Defense point is worth several HP points in terms of survivability.

Speed: In addition to deciding turn order, units with enough speed (usually due to speed boosting skills or equipment) can “lap” slow enough enemies, acting more than once per enemy turn. Speed’s effect is hard to measure, and it does not appear possible to get more than two actions per enemy turn and it’s incredibly difficult to do so consistently. Speed is a very important stat that is unfortunately almost impossible to gauge the value of meaningfully.

Move: How far the character can move per turn. Always starts at 2, but some units increase Move upon +2 Awakening levels, usually for melee range units. Feather accessories and Boots with specific Enchantments can have +1 Move as well.

Sex: Annoyingly, a character’s sex is a stat which occasionally impacts a few characters’ passive skills. Characters are either male, female, or very rarely neuter (neutral looking enemies are still usually) male. A unit’s sex is fixed and has no affect outside of specific skills such as Etna’s attack boost against female units, and you have no control over the sex of your enemies so it largely exists to randomly reduce the effectiveness of said skills. But said skills are rare and it shouldn’t often make a meaningful difference.

Elements

There’s elemental effects and five elements: Fire, Water, Tree, Holy, and Darkness. Every character is associated with an element, and all damage that unit deals is of that element.

Tree beats Water beats Fire beats Tree, making a rock paper scissors effect, while Holy and Darkness are mutually weak to each other. There is no same-type resistance; Fire attacks deal weak damage to Water but normal damage to both Fire and Tree. For some reason, Dark Generic characters are excluded from the standard Gachapons.

Rewards/Achievements

Login Bonus

There’s a login bonus as usual, with the first week getting two sets of rewards. The daily rewards are still pretty good even after the first week. You’ll also unlock Etna by claiming the login bonus for 20 days.

Daily Missions

There are 6 daily rewards you can claim by completing Daily Missions. They’re not a huge deal but you might as well claim the free stuff if you can, and most you’ll do simply by playing the game anyway. Daily Missions roll over on the same timer as the Daily Login Bonus, midnight Japan time.

Differences from Disgaea

If you’ve played Disgaea (or any SRPG) you’ll have a good basis for understanding how to play. Here’s some key differences that Veterans will notice:

The battlefield is much simplified and characters always have a normal attack and two skills

Skills recharge over X turns, rather than having an SP cost

Characters have inherent skills based on who they are, no learning/transfering skills

Stats are more straightforward; Attack appears to always affect damage, rather than Fists using 50% Strength 50% speed etc.

Facing will affect damage but not accuracy, and you cannot directly edit facing). Direct rear attacks only, not side attacks, deal extra.

There is no “defend”, only “skip turn”

Asagi actually has a game

Elements are now an inherent property of a unit, so a Fire unit is always weak to ice and all units have elements

There are still different equipment types, though weapon type appears to matter less than it normally would

There is no throwing or height differences etc.

Leveling & Evolution (Level Cap)

Levels can be earned from Green Experience earned every stage, or purchased with Hell at a rate of 1 Experience per 1 Hell. Leveling with Hell is best saved for when there’s a wide gap between a new character you like and your regular team, so you can skip grinding.

Evolution means upgrading the Level Cap. Evolution is a process that will raise the ★ ranking of your character and their base stats as well. Once a unit’s Orange Experience meter is full and they’ve reached their current max level (60/60 for example), they can be upgraded to the next ★ by using Hell.

Evolution is basically always worth it, as only characters you actually use will ever hit it, it’s pretty cheap, and not evolving means your character is basically “stuck” stat-wise.

After reaching 6★ you’ll no longer need to earn Evolution Points. Additionally you’ll be given 5 Sandwiches, 1 Red Orb, 100 Rubies, and 1 Evolution Experience Booster for each character that reaches 6★.

Awakening

Awakening is achieved either by getting a duplicate character in Gachapon (immediately raising that character’s Awakening level), or by spending Awakening Stones (the rainbow gems for Generics, or special per-character stones for Story Characters).

Awakening gives a small percentage boost every +1 awakening level, and either +1 Move or Range every +2 Awakening Levels.

Thief+2 gains +1 range

Female warrior +2 gains +1 move

Status Effects

Various characters can inflict status effects with passive (usually counters) or active skills. When used right many status effects can be devastating and deny their targets entire turns worth of action.

Sleep: Unable to act for duration of effect. Attacking a sleeping character will wake them up. Amusingly, sleeping characters will join Team Attacks.

Stun: Unable to act duration of effect. Attacking a stunned character will not bring them out of it.

Paralyze: Same effect as Stun.

Confuse: Will attack a random target with regular attacks only for duration of effect. They can target allies, but may will still target the enemy team if they’re in range. Attacking a confused character will bring them out of it. Confusion is best used when an enemy is in their attack range but not an ally; if only one target (or only enemies) are in their range, they’ll attack what’s in range rather than moving toward your characters. Confused targets may also simply not act if nothing is in their immediate range.

Blind:Adds a50%(?) miss chance on all attacks for duration of effect. Blind no longer stacks.

Bind: Able to attack but not move. Most effective on short-range characters as it can make them completely waste turns if they cannot hit anything.

Burn: Character takes damage worth 5% of their total HP each turn while under the effect. Stacks with Burn/Poison, and if multiple stacks are present damage will be dealt multiple times per turn. Fire element characters can still be burned.

Poison: Same effect as Burn.

Regen: Same effect as Burn, but heals instead of hurts.

Skill Seal: Locks use of a character’s Skill 3 (their strongest skill) for the duration of the effect. Does not affect Cool Time count.

Shield: Shield adds an invisible health bar worth a certain percent of the unit’s total HP (dependant on skill), usually imparted by a passive skill. This invisible health bar will be depleted before your main health bar, showing 0 damage (and not removing the buff icon) if an attack is sustained that does not deal enough damage to “knock out” the shield.

The shield’s HP is not restored unless another effect that would impart Shield occurs; heals still go to your real HP. Unlike other de/buffs, Shield lasts until the invisible HP bar is depleted, amount of turns has no bearing on it’s effect.

Buff/Debuff: Many effects will raise/lower defense/attack/speed/critical percentage for a turn or two. All buffs/debuffs stack their effect (not duration) if multiple of the same type are inflicted on the same target. This can make a single unit extra powerful/extra worthless if properly stacked between their turns. A target with Speed debuffs stacked may miss several turns.

Gachapon

Gachapon pulls will only give 2 tiers: 2 star and 3 star. Only 3 star pulls will be “Story” characters (Laharl, Flonne etc.). The likelihood of 3 star pulls in general is 8%, though the exact percent per-character can be viewed (in Japanese) inside Makai War’s gachapon menu. Stats are subject to change at any time and thus won’t be listed here.

There is no benefit to rolling 10characters instead of 1 at a time, other than spending less time.

Duplicates exist – Duplicates are “fused” with the one you already have for +1 Awakening level, giving a stat bonus.

Generics can be of different elements so you could get, for example, a Fire Female Warrior and an Tree Female Warrior. For some reason, Dark type generics are not currently in the regular gachapon pool.

The gachapon has a “mercy rule” where if you don’t get a 3★ character in 50 rolls (a very unlikely, but possible, event), your 51st roll is a guaranteed 3★ and you’ll get 100 Summon Stones to awaken that character as well. This counter is not shared between “banners”, so you’re unlikely to ever hit the limit on any gachapon other than the regular one (and only if very unlucky).

Friends List

With a recent app version update (not just the ingame update), a new Friends List was added to the game.

The Friends tab is on the main menu, the person icon under the gift box. Tap it to see three taps, people you’re following (blue), your followers (red), and your own info.

Loans

Characters can be loaned from the Team/Formation select screen before going into battle (the little “friend” icon right of the formation icon). You can only loan one character per battle.

After fighting a battle with a “random” loan, you’ll be asked if you want to follow the player (the blue button is “yes”).

When loaning, double check the equipment of your loaned unit; players loan their starred or “favorite” unit, but they may not necessarily be geared for battle (especially since the feature just launched).

To lend your units, simply set your favorite unit to who you want people to be able to loan. Loan your strongest unit or a popular/limited character so people will have more reason to loan it out to get more follows/likes (unclear if these have real rewards yet).

Loans can help “carry” you through more challenging stages, but there are limits to what a single character can do for you.

Items/Currencies

I’ll get icons for these in a bit. This list isn’t exhaustive of uses, so if I’m missing something please let me know!

Hell

Used to buy levels for units in place of Experience and upgrade Formations.

Mana

Mana is used to upgrade weapons.

Rubies

The standard lesser-premium Currency, rubies are mostly used for the standard Gachapon at a rate of 300 per single-character pull.

Sandwich

+50 AP, will exceed the AP cap temporarily so AP is never “wasted” from these. Eat by using the “items” (sandwich/clock) icon on the main screen.

Skill Orbs

These level up a unit’s skill by one level. Red is for Active skills, blue is for Passive skills. They’re pretty rare, so use them sparingly and/or for people who you’re absolutely sure you’ll keep on your team; either grinding-focused characters or your favorites.

Rainbow Potion

Rainbow Potions add Orange Experience which allows a character at level cap to exceed it’s level cap and add a star to it’s rarity.

Experience Boosters

The Alarm Clock items boost Experience (green) or Evolution Points (orange) by 50% for a limited time. Best used with the weekly SP Quests that give huge amounts of EXP.

Diamonds (White Gems)

These are the premium currency, and are mostly used for a special 3★ Guaranteed gachapon (press the arrow key at the gachapon to see the diamond-only option). They can be used in place of Rubies wherever they are used.

Formations

Formations are unlocked through Story progress, and come with both a formation (duh) of your units, and respective stat buffs for each character in each formation slot. Formations can be upgraded with Hell (coins) to increase the stat buff.

Change formations at the “team select” screen before starting a mission, and upgrade them from the same screen with the blue button at the far right.

Equipment

Weapons

They are all largely identical except each type of character can only equip one type of weapon; there is no changing weapon types like Disgaea. Also unlike disgaea, weapons do not use different attack stats or imbue different ranges; range is set by the character not weapon, and Attack is the only stat used to calculate damage.

Rather than having alternative types of weapons like other gear slots have, each individual weapon boosts a random stat: Attack, Defense, Critical Percent, Critical Damage, or Speed. This bonus stat increases with enhancements along with Attack. A weapon with no visible bonus has Attack as it’s bonus and will have higher Attack than other weapons with different bonuses.

Since you can only take 5 people with you in battle, you’ll need at the very most 5 of each weapon unless you have a lot of users of X weapon and like to hold different weapon “focuses” (crit chance, attack, defense etc).

Armor

There are four types of armor, all of which raise Defense plus bonus stats:

Breastplates: Boosts Defense by more than usualHelmets: Boosts Def and HPGauntlets: Boosts Def and AttackBoots: Boost Def and Speed

Boots are rarer, and are notable for having a (rarer still) chance of having +1 Move as an Enchantment effect. This Enchantment hasn’t been observed on other gear, and is very rare even on boots. To try and find it, farm many boots from the Armor SP quests, then upgrade the equipment to +6 to see if +1 Move is on them. If you’re feeling bold (or it’s already a good set of enhancements you want to keep) you can go to +9, but at/beyond that point the mana cost gets very high. It does not appear possible to get more than +1 Move on a single boot.

Accessories

Accessories provide a much smaller boost than Armor or Weapons. They’re often more useful for their enchantment pool than their base effects.

Earrings can only be found at the SP quests that cost 7 AP or more (4 Stars and up). The feather and glasses items are found at SP quests that cost 9AP or more (6 stars and up)

Magic Stones

Magic Stones (sometimes called Gems) act as an “accessory” slot and you can equip up to 3. Magic Stones can affect almost any stat and have three separate qualities.

Color: Color determines Set Bonus.Effect: Exact stat that they buff, this determines per-level upgradesEnchantments: Like other gear, every 3 levels on a Magic Stone will add a random bonus to almost any stat. Rare/Legendary magic stones have better enhancements.

Magic Stone Set Bonus

Set bonuses give 10% extra stats for 2 of the same color and 20% for 3 of the same color, with the exception of Status Resistance (unknown) and Criitcal Damage (20% and 40%). Here are the colors and what stats their set bonus affects:

Note that a magic stones’ Effect is unrelated to its Color, so a magic stone with a color that buffs HP might give Attack as it’s Effect. Likewise, a Color set’s percentage bonus will still effect a unit even if all those stones don’t actually include that stat; the unit’s stat total will be buffed, not the stone’s.

Geo Symbols

Geo Symbols are hidden away in the “prinny camp” icon along with the In App Purchases, but Geo Symbols are bought with Mana. Geo Symbols act as a full-team permanent (but slight) buff rather than their usual Disgaea function.

Each upgrade level adds +1% of a stat (+1 point in case of speed) to certain effects. Note their color matches the Gem color for each stat as well, so they’re easy to remember. In the order presented in the menu, they are:

Geo Symbols costs rise as they’re upgraded, making the earliest levels the best and safest investments. I personally upgrade them fairly evenly and prefer upgrading gear to +9 before upgrading geo symbols, but the effects are worth it long-term. Geo Symbol costs increase as such:

5,000, 10,000, 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, 100,00, 250,000, 500,000

Stages

Story

These are the main levels of the game and unlock various items as you progress. Go through as much of the story as you can first before messing with too much else. Story Levels cost AP to replay, but are free the first playthrough.

Once a story Chapter is complete, you can play a harder “purple” difficulty by pressing the lower right blue button at Stage Select. There will be a second set of missions with new completion rewards and Stars to earn.

SP Quests

SP Quests are special missions you can do a few times per day in exchange for AP and have specific rewards to help you focus your progress.

SP Quests have three types: Equipment Quests, Timed Events, and Character Episodes

Equipment Quests

These are the standard SP Quests that give a specific type of reward.

The first Equipment Quest is unlocked by reaching a point in the Story Missions (the end of the first chapter I think?). Each following quest is unlocked by beating other SP quests and unlocking more levels of each.

10 AP SP quests appear to be the only method to get 6 star/7 star equipment.

SP Quests can also drop random “premium” items at a low chance, including:

20-30 Rubies

Large extra amount of Hell/Mana (10,000, 20,000, 75,000)

Evo Potions (any size)

XP vial (any size, element of the boss, 1-3 at a time)

Tokens (the kind trading in characters give), 1 at a time

Rainbow stones (very small numbers, very rare)

Weekly Timed Events

These events occur on specific weekdays only, and you may only complete Weeklies 3 per week. This means unlocking the highest level of each quest will take a couple weeks, so unlock while you can. Failing an event will waste your AP but does not reduce the amount of times you can complete that event for the day.

Times are all in Japanese Standard Time, not your local time. To see what time/day it is in Japan, use this clock.

Friday: Extra Hell

Rank 5: 50,000 Hell

Saturday: Extra Mana

Rank 1: 5,000 Mana

Rank 2: 10,000 Mana

Rank 3:

Rank 4:

Rank 5: 50,000 Mana

Sunday: Evolution (Orange Experience)

Rank 1:

Rank 2:

Rank 3: 100 Evolution Points

Rank 4: 175 EP

Rank5: Recommended level: 100+

Monday: Green Experience (Powerleveling)

Rank 1

Rank 2: 2,500 EXP

Rank 3: 5,000 EXP

Rank 4: 12,500 EXP

Rank 5: 20,000 EXP

Weekly XP Vial Quests

There’s also a set of Experience Vial dailies now. They only have 3 ranks and are extremely easy. The ranks drop, in order; one to three 5k experience vial, 1-2 5K or 10k experience vials, and one to three 10k experience vials.

Tuesday: Fire

Wednesday: Water

Thursday: Tree

Friday: Holy

Saturday: Dark

Character Episodes

Makai Wars includes per-character “Episodes” in the SP quest section. They’re not time limited in most cases (time limited events always show a purple timer).

Completing a character episode gives 10 Awakening Stones for that character (1/10th of the way towards a single awakening), as well as 2 XP vials (M) for their type, 2 small Evo vials, 50 rubies, and 10 Large Rainbow Stones.

Note that as long as you have even one summon stone for a specific unit, you can summon them with enough Large Rainbow Stones. So even though 10 stones isn’t enough to summon a unit, it can help you call a single character you really want. This is a good reason to save Rainbow Stones to summon instead of Awakening units.

The game currently has episodes for the following characters:

Laharl

Etna

Valkyrie

Freya

Flonne

Odin

Translations

Menu English Translations

Additionally, some basic menu translations for Makai Wars have been posted here! I’m in the process of making some graphics for the main menus myself.

IAP Translations

Starter Package

Lunch Box

Price:
Items: 2 Sandwich (50 AP), 100 Gems, once a day for 15 days.
Total 30 Sandwich and 1,500 gems.

Dark Set

Price:
Items: 2 Dark Ticket, some diamonds

Rank Rewards

Probably the most “worth it” item so far by a lot.

Price: ?
Items: This one adds “achievement” rewards every 10 ranks. If you’re already rank 50 you’ll just get all rewards instantly.

Rank 10

Ruby x 1,400

Sandwich x 5

Rank 20

Ruby x 300

Hell x 50,000

Rank 30

Blue Skill Orb x 2

Red Skill Orb x 2

Rank 40

Ruby x 300

Mana x 500 (thousand?)

Rank 50

Ruby x 300

Awakening Book

Normal IAP

Note that normal IAP for gems, while straightforward, will basically always be the worst way to spend your money; look for limited time/special offers, these are always more effective ways to spend your money (compare gems given in the straightforward IAP tiers to the rewards in almost any IAP pack).

Equipment

The easiest place to get equipment (up to 4 star) is actually Story Mode. Starting in 4-4-1, hard mode story levels will start to drop 4 star items and they’re beatable at a much lower level than the equivalent SP Quests would be.

Stage 4-5-3 (hard mode) is particularly good for 4 star Gems. The layout is a single Fire Dragon boss, very easily dispatched by any team who can make it to that level. It seems to drop a gem every time and a decent amount of experience (3,000).

Once you need 5* or above weapons, SP Quests start being required. Only SP quests will ever drop 6 or 7 star equipment.

Achievements

Here’s the rewards you can get per achievement.

Enhance a Gear Item to +15

Reward: 100 Rubies each
Max level: 10

Any type of gear (weapon, gem, etc) works, it’s best to use 1 star items because they’re the cheapest and you can sell them after getting them. Takes around 20,000 mana each item.

Level a character to 120

Reward: Gacha ticket (cycles between all 5 elements)
Max level: 20, then more than 1 character is required to get further tickets

Worth it especially for the Dark Tickets, which are otherwise impossibly rare.

Reach Player Rank X

Reward: 100 Rubies
Max level: 20?

Just a minor bonus for playing a lot.

Clear Daily Mission X Times

Reward: 50 Rubies
Max level: ?

Pretty meh.

Acquire X different kinds of characters

Reward: Hell
Max level: 20, at 100 characters

Traded away gacha dupes still count. A meager bonus so don’t worry much about it.

Beat each level of SP quests

Each set of SP quest has 10 of these, the last two rewards are the most meaningful: at level 9 you get 10 2 star character Rainbow Stones, and at level 10 you get a Gacha Ticket (never a Dark one though).

Evolve characters X Times

Reward: Red Skill Orb
Max level: 20, 100 evolutions

Use Skill Orbs X Times

Reward: Hell
Max level: ?

Pull Gacha X Times

Reward: Blue Skill Orb

Makai Wars FAQ

Q: I’m not earning AP over time!/ The Gachapon loads forever!

A: Update the game, this was a bug in an old version.

Q: I can’t start a mission even though I have enough AP!

This is usually because you have too many equipped items, sell some in the Equipment menu, starting with your worst, least important items.

Q: I keep rerolling the tutorial Gachapon and I can’t get (X)!

A: The tutorial Gachapon in Makai Wars is special and will only return one 3★ character, and it cannot be certain characters like Etna, Asagi, etc.

Q: I get a strange error message that says 504 and a bunch of Japanese

A: 504 is a Gateway Timeout error; basically your device couldn’t connect to Makai Wars’ servers, and the game is Always Online so it can’t continue. This may happen due to server issues at the game’s side, or internet issues at your side. There’s not much to do but keep trying, and try again later if it doesn’t clear up in a few seconds.

Q: How do I get Makai Wars if I’m not from Japan?

A: Japanese VPNs, APKs, stuff like that. There’s a lot of guides out there for similar games. I can’t personally help you there due to grey areas, but Google will probably get you started.

Q: Where is (Character)?

A: If they’re not in Makai Wars but they’re in the title screen graphic, they’re sure to be added soonish. Otherwise, characters will likely be added to the game based on popularity. I’ve only listed characters currently in Makai Wars.

Q: When is Makai Wars coming out in English?

A: Between many months from now to never. There’s no official announcement of when or even if it’s coming at the moment. I asked NISA PR and (of course) it’s not officially planned, but these things are never known until they’re announced.

Arena (PVP)

New in the game is Arena mode, the PVP mode of the game. This game mode earns you special currency (badges/medals) that can be used in a new shop for awards, including a Flonne gacha ticket.

Arena Mode has it’s own Stamina (BP instead of AP) so make sure to spend it and don’t let it go to waste. You get 10 BP total, and they refresh one per hour.

To start in the Arena you’re given a set of 10 extremely low rank opponents (topping out around level 50). To advance in the arena you have to beat them all, which should be easy if you’ve been through the whole story mode.

Arena Exclusive Characters

The Arena shop (with the Geo panels/etc shops in the Prinny Tent) contains summon tickets for 4 exclusive characters. The ticket will summon a random element, including Dark, of the character (for 2* characters).

Prinny Ticket

2* unit, same as the ones you fight in story levels

1,000 Medals

Disgaea Female Mage

2* unit, basically a better Skull

3,000 Medals

Disgaea Ronin

2* unit

3,000 Medals

Fallen Angel Flonne

3* unit, stronger/more offense focused version of Flonne

10,000 Medals

Rankings

How well you rank determines your reward. Due to rankings being based on number of stars earned, it’s possible (and certain) for multiple people to share the top 1 slot. You’re given Arena Medals for your place, distributed a few days after the season ends.